Navy to beef up presence in Asian waters

"It is clear to us the prosperity of (the) economy in the region depends on security," official news agency Bernama quoted Admiral Gary Roughead, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, as telling local reporters during a visit to Malaysia.

The narrow, strategic waterway of the Malacca Strait is an 805-km (500-mile) channel linking Asia with the Middle East and Europe and carries some 50,000 vessels a year.

It also carries some 40 percent of the world's trade, including 80 percent of Japan's and South Korea's oil and gas and 80 percent of China's oil, according to a U.S.-Indonesia Society 2005 study on the impact of a terrorism attack in the strait._________________________

From an economic and strategic perspective the Strait of Malacca is one of the most important shipping lanes in the world, an equivalent of the Suez Canal, or the Panama Canal. The Strait forms the main ship passageway between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, linking three of the world's most populous nations: India, Indonesia and China._________________________

"It is a matter of extreme urgency that China act immediately to increase the flexibility of its exchange rate regime before real harm is done to its own economy, to its Asian neighbours and to the global system," Mr Snow said in Washington._________________________In an attempt to force China and its robust economy to help ease economic woes at home, the US seems to be making veiled threats as the above linked items imply. Foreign policy at its best!

"As a matter of general principle, I believe that there can be no doubt that criticism in time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government. . . Too many people desire to suppress criticism simply because they think it will give some comfort to the enemy to know that there is such criticism. If that comfort makes the enemy feel better for a few moments, they are welcome to it as far as I am concerned, because the maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country maintaining it a great deal more good than it will do the enemy, and it will prevent mistakes which might otherwise occur."
-Robert A. Taft, Republican Senator from Ohio, Dec. 19, 1941

"Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix."
-Harry S. Truman, US President

"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it."
-George W. Bush, Business Week, July 30, 2001